I read Playing for Keeps yesterday. I had some humor that worked for me, but not enough to recommend the book for people looking for humor.
The author seriously needs to hire a copy-editor. These were the errors I recorded:
[page/paragraph/line #s on Sony Reader with 207 epub pages]
[10++ formatting problems]
[much borderline wording & punctuation]
12-13/1/7-8 wanted to coddle [cuddle]
16/4/7 Yellow jackets [wasps, not bees as in several mentions]
31-32/2/3-4 mumbled as [he] prepared
42-43/2/9 took [taken] Haley to
43-44/3/3 factm [fact]
49-50/6/4 stopped at [a] store
58/1/3 took him back [aback]
61/3/1 elsewhere for [the] night
62-63/2/5 her arm laid [lay] across
68/1/2-3 it [delete] that was fine
69/2/3 breath of content [contentment]
78/2/5 Not that he card [cared]
81/1/3 who'd smile [smiled] at
87-88/2/5 Outward [Outwardly] she was
87-88/las want you [to] go home
91/1/1 fists of furry [fury]
92/4/1 f_ck off you[delete], you
100-101/1/2 like a vice [vise]
102/2/5-6 laid [lay] on his side
104/2/8-9 get bored and moved onto [move on to] the
105-106/5/3-4 to ring [wring] my neck
108/2/8 liked to [have] been able
108/3/2 direction in [delete] which
110/6/1 to lay [lie] here
110/7/1 to lay [lie] there
110-111/2/1 just lay [lie] there
115/3/2 scoffing [scarfing] that down
115/6/6-7 was clearing [clearly] being held
127-128/4/6 words rush [rushed] out
143-144/4/3 making [her] squirm
162/6/1 cutting her of [off]
164-165/1/6 into [to] sleep with
174/1/5 have it out [in] for her
174/2/8 than [then] he was
176-177/4/1 the band [ban] in Las Vegas
180/1/12 gave into [in to] the
185/2/1 to rollover [roll over]
194/last two weeks [away] from her
194-195/2/4-5 her nibble [nimble] little fingers
195/2/6 his left peck [pec]
197-198/1/2 clenched jaw twitched [twitch]
199/1/3 sighed with content [contentment]
199/3/2 between [over] her slit
199-200/4/1 as [she] released the
200/3/8 one [to] fix it
201/2/4 between [over] her slit
203/last rated [ratted] his ass out

It would be nice if authors worked 40+ hours a week at a regular job and dedicated their evenings and weekends to crafting stories. Then they could spend thousands of their own dollars having their tome professionally edited, copy-edited and proofread, and more on a professional cover and professional conversion to popular ebook formats. Then they can spend even more of their own money to promote and market the book so we know about it. Lastly, they could allow the book to be downloaded free for our reading enjoyment.

Best,
Lilly_________________"Or perchance when the last little star has left the sky,
Shall we still be together with our arms around each other,
And shall you be my new romance?"

It would be nice if authors worked 40+ hours a week at a regular job and dedicated their evenings and weekends to crafting stories. Then they could spend thousands of their own dollars having their tome professionally edited, copy-edited and proofread, and more on a professional cover and professional conversion to popular ebook formats. Then they can spend even more of their own money to promote and market the book so we know about it. Lastly, they could allow the book to be downloaded free for our reading enjoyment.

Best,
Lilly

You said what I was thinking. These are full length books and they are being offered for only $1.00 (less a penny cause I canít find the cent sign). As I said earlier on, I really enjoyed these books and this author and at this price I donít think we can quibble too much over editing errors since I doubt very much the author has the resources to find editors to do this kind of thing and still charge such a small amount.

And to Mark Ė I canít help but wonder how much you can actually enjoy a book when you are so anal retentive as to not only make note of all editing errors, but to actually track the pages. Iím not being factious, truly, itís just that Iím the opposite of the kind of reader who notices those things and they are so low on my reading radar. While I try to be meticulous in writing myself, I donít notice errors that others make and Iím sure I do make a number myself anyway. Itís the story itself that gets my attention and in order for me to notice that kind of thing it would have to be so blatant that even a five-year old would pick it up *grin*.

Thanks for the rec. I'm about 3/4 through and I really like it. It's not a keeper, but a fun, quick read and that's what I'm in the mood for. A solid B read and pretty hot. I never buy books from unknown authors as a gamble, but for .99 - well, I've spent more for a bottle of water and gotten less pleasure. So thank you to pwm in mi for the recommendation. I agree, it was worth the money and now I have a new author to check out when I'm in a slump.

This is what I like best about this website. Finding new books and authors with the opinions is fun to read (sometimes I like reading the reviews better than the books, hope that's not too strange). Always looking for my next DIK.

I'm not sure whether I'm anywhere close to a typical buyer.
I actually paid $2.99 to try the Mathewson book--the Sony eBook Store where I got it listed it as $0.99 on the search page but rang it up as $2.99.
I get a lot of free ebooks to try if I ever have time.
I won't buy any ebook for more than $9.99.
I buy ebooks by new-to-me authors anywhere in that price range, with how high I'm willing to go depending on the nature, strength and convincingness of the recommendation.

Don't self-publish if you can't afford copy-editing. You will just irritate readers.

Sorry but I have to disagree with this as a blanket statement. Some readers may be irritated, but others (such as myself) won't even notice. I was a happy camper to find these books.

Quote:

actually paid $2.99 to try the Mathewson book--the Sony eBook Store where I got it listed it as $0.99 on the search page but rang it up as $2.99.

I think the confusion lies in the fact that it was $.99 at first but I noticed it's now going for $2.99 on Amazon. The other in the series is still $0.99 the last time I looked and some of the other books by this author are still $0.99